This is Part 2 of our special blog post about big Italian weddings in San Francisco. On the previous post, we had just completed the formal bride and groom photo shoot in the Marina District and then we headed back to North Beach to begin the wedding reception. If you have not had the chance to read Part 1 of our San Francisco Italian wedding series please click the link. This will catch you up with the festivities.
The party for Jayne and Bobby’s wedding celebration was at the Italian Athletic Club which is a well known place in San Francisco for Italian wedding receptions (or any type). The Club always make sure that there is plenty of Pasta served and lots of other good Italian food. Its nice to experience authentic Italian food done the right way. We have certainly spent quite a bit of time in North Beach after our San Francisco city hall weddings indulging at the great Italian restaurants in this area. https://www.weddingphotographersanfranciscocityhall.com/
The dancing at this Italian wedding reception was mostly contemporary music with a few old Italian standards mixed in for the grandparents especially. This definitely brings back memories of my background attending and working at Italian weddings when I was much younger. It’s important to be careful and not eat too much food while working though! They kept offering us Salami and Mortadella, which was seemingly everywhere! It never ceases to amaze me how much food they put out for Italian weddings. One thing you know for sure, you will never go hungry at one of these weddings. At the same time, we can’t be eating food constantly while working. Very hard to say no when so much great Italian food is being passed in front of you. We often come here for wedding receptions after our SF City Hall weddings also.
This great Italian couple did all the normal traditional wedding dances including the first dance and the father-daughter dance. Here is a nice article from Wedding Wire that talks about these traditional wedding dances and what order they should be completed. After the father-daughter dance was done the party went into normal dancing mode and things became fun and pretty wild. Lots of dancing and partying with the music getting louder and the younger people getting more involved. This group seemed to be very close and really enjoyed each other. You could really tell that they were a tight group of friends who knew each other well. There was also a very strong family sense that I often see at Italian weddings. In addition to all of this fun partying the newlyweds made sure to meet and greet all of their guests by visiting the tables. As their wedding photographers, we accompanied them to each table and took candid and some posed shots. Once these formalities were completed the final events of the evening also occurred. These activities included cake cutting, speeches and the bridal bouquet toss.
This is one of the things I really love about photographing these big San Francisco Italian weddings. I can relate to them especially being from a pretty large Italian family myself. Certainly a departure from our typical San Francisco City Hall weddings which are mostly just about photographing the ceremony and then the bride and groom after in various places around San Francisco or even just at City Hall sometimes. No parties or wedding receptions for most civil ceremonies, unless it something small like a luncheon or dinner nearby. Sometimes we are asked to cover these City hall wedding receptions and sometimes we are not. We are very experienced in large wedding receptions after city hall weddings and they are not much different than a weekend wedding.
After this San Francisco wedding, we stayed in touch with Jayne and Bobby and have seen them a number of times since. One of our favorite couples! Jayne works at a North Beach ristorante in San Francisco and we often visit her there as well. I am sure she would love to see you at Sotto Mare, one of our favorite places for Italian seafood and fresh fish. Stop by and tell her Mike the wedding photographer sent you. They have some of the freshest fish in San Francisco and everything is served with an Italian flare. I have never had a bad meal there. The photo below is from the Reception and it looks amazing as you can see. They really made the most of their big San Francisco Italian wedding.
Thank you so much for the great article, it was fluent and to the point. Cheers.